Yesterday we talked a little bit about Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki, a 16-year-old American killed in an American drone strike.
Ever heard of the name Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki? Sure it’s a mouthful, but you can bet your a** that had he been killed during the George Bush years, he’d be a household name.
Al-Awlaki was a 16-year-old American from Denver, killed in a White House ordered drone strike. His lone suspected ties to terrorism were the fact that his father had given terrorist-inspiring sermons, and he certainly was not given due process. His father, no doubt, did some terrible things. Things that I have railed on consistently. He was, in my mind, an active terrorist – but this was never proven in a court of law.
The younger Al-Awlaki never saw a day in court either.
Now, Gateway Pundit has dug up a New York Times report confirming that this drone strike was ordered specifically by the President himself.
In May 2012 The New York Times revealed that Barack Obama was the official who actually made the final call on US drone strikes.
This was the enemy, served up in the latest chart from the intelligence agencies: 15 Qaeda suspects in Yemen with Western ties. The mug shots and brief biographies resembled a high school yearbook layout. Several were Americans. Two were teenagers, including a girl who looked even younger than her 17 years…
…Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war. When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.
Seven months before the New York Times report, Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki, a 16-year-old American citizen from Denver, was killed in a drone strike in Yemen.
Read the Times report here.
Thus far, the only known explanation for the murder of the younger Al-Awlaki seems to be a statement from Robert Gibbs that the boy “should have had a better father”.
Also today, the New York Times (h/t Memeorandum) is reporting that Congress will have a chance to look over the secret kill memo.
The White House on Wednesday directed the Justice Department to release to the two Congressional Intelligence Committees classified documents discussing the legal justification for killing, by drone strikes and other means, American citizens abroad who are considered terrorists.
The White House announcement appears to refer to a long, detailed 2010 memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel justifying the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric who had joined Al Qaeda in Yemen. He was killed in a C.I.A. drone strike in September 2011. Members of Congress have long demanded access to the legal memorandum.
The decision to release the legal memo to the Intelligence Committees came under pressure, two days after a bipartisan group of 11 senators joined a growing chorus asking for more information about the legal justification for targeted killings, especially of Americans.
So pressure from lawmakers has led to the release of the kill memo. Only question remaining is, when will the media start applying pressure that they clearly would have during the Bush years?
Ever heard of the name Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki? Sure it’s a mouthful, but you can bet your a** that had he been killed during the George Bush years, he’d be a household name.
Al-Awlaki is a 16-year-old American from Denver, who was killed in a White House ordered drone strike. His lone suspected ties to terrorism were the fact that his father had given terrorist-inspiring sermons, and he certainly was not given due process. His father, no doubt, did some terrible things. Things that I have railed on consistently. He was, in my mind, an active terrorist – but this was never proven in a court of law.
The younger Al-Awlaki never saw a day in court either.
Yesterday, we discussed a Justice Department memo that makes a legal case for killing Americans using drone strikes, without any justifiable cause. The memo had been available since June, and is just now getting media coverage.
So if that memo is a surprise, it’s a sure thing that nobody has heard the story of Al-Awlaki.
Via NBC News (h/t Gateway Pundit):
But the most controversial drone strike took place on Oct. 14, 2011, when 16-year-old Abdulrahman was killed by U.S. forces.
Family of the Denver-born teenager say he had no ties to terrorist organizations and was unjustly targeted because of his father.
Nassar al-Awlaki, grandfather of Abdulrahman and father to Anwar, said he tried to protect his grandson as Anwar al-Awlaki’s profile grew.
In December, Nassar al-Awlaki told CNN, “In Anwar it was expected because he was under targeted killing, but how in the world they will go and kill Abdulrahman. Small boy, U.S. citizen from Denver, Colorado.”
Impeachment papers would have been drawn up the following day for Bush. Obama gets a pass for killing American citizens.
Why?
NBC has released a Justice Department memo that makes a legal case for killing Americans using drone strikes, without any justifiable cause.
Via NBC News (h/t Memeorandum):
A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” — even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.
The 16-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, provides new details about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration’s most secretive and controversial polices: its dramatically increased use of drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects abroad, including those aimed at American citizens, such as the September 2011 strike in Yemen that killed alleged al-Qaida operatives Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. Both were U.S. citizens who had never been indicted by the U.S. government nor charged with any crimes.
The secrecy surrounding such strikes is fast emerging as a central issue in this week’s hearing of White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, a key architect of the drone campaign, to be CIA director. Brennan was the first administration official to publicly acknowledge drone strikes in a speech last year, calling them “consistent with the inherent right of self-defense.” In a separate talk at the Northwestern University Law School in March, Attorney General Eric Holder specifically endorsed the constitutionality of targeted killings of Americans, saying they could be justified if government officials determine the target poses “an imminent threat of violent attack.”
Will there be wall-to-wall coverage of this on all networks? Where is the outrage? Nothing on par to the criticisms of the Bush administration. No Code Pink coverage. No Cindy Sheehan watch.
In short – torturing terrorists – Bad! Killing Americans without proof – Meh.
Perhaps Kirsten Powers, a liberal commentator on the Fox News Network, pointed out the contrast in the best terms, criticizing the President himself.
President Obama blasted Bush for waterboarding 3 al-qaeda operatives, but has no trouble KILLING Americans, w/no ‘specific evidence.’
Joe Scarborough, MSNBC’s token moderate Republican, even referred to the news as “terrifying”, and added, “If George Bush Had Done This, It Would Have Been Stopped”.
It would have been stopped because the liberal media would have made this all about how evil President Bush was. Instead, Obama will get a pass. The controversial Gitmo pictures which showed abuse of Taliban prisoners was national news for months on end. A kill memo for American citizens? That will be forgotten in short order.
But it’s not just the media saying this memo is no big deal. According to Powers, Congress has known about the kill memo since last June.
If Congress and the media are unwilling to hold the President to a higher standard, who will?
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